Trump confirms he will send National Guard to Chicago but won’t provide timing

President Donald Trump promised Tuesday he would deploy National Guard troops to prevent crime in Chicago but wouldn’t say when.

Gov. JB Pritzker says sending the National Guard into Chicago to fight crime is unconstitutional.
Courtesy of Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

“We’re going in. I didn’t say when we’re going in,” Trump said at a White House event, noting he was prompted by violence over the Labor Day holiday weekend in the city.

“I have an obligation. This isn’t a political thing. There’s no place in the world … you can go to Afghanistan, you can go to places that you would think of — they don’t even come close to this. Chicago is a hellhole.”

President Donald Trump is planning to send National Guard troops to Chicago to fight crime.
AP

Gov. JB Pritzker called the National Guard threat an unconstitutional political stunt and power grab that doesn’t reflect declining crime rates.

“I refuse to believe any of this is normal,” he said at a briefing Tuesday joined by state and local leaders.

“He is insulting the people of Chicago by calling our city a hellhole,” Pritzker said. “We are ready to fight troop deployment in court.”

The federal government also is expected to ramp up Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the coming days.

More than 50 shootings, at least eight of them fatal, occurred over the long weekend in Chicago, according to published reports.

“A lot of presidents wouldn’t do it,” Trump said. But after watching news of the violence, “I say, ‘that’s not this country. We have to do something.’ ”

“There is no emergency in Chicago that warrants federalizing the National Guard,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle responded Tuesday.

Mayor Brandon Johnson said the president is “worried about the wrong border. The violence is not because we have too many immigrants. It’s because we have too many guns.”

· This is a developing story that will be updated.